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Tales from the Terminal RoomMay 2002, Issue No. 32 |
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Please Note: This is an archive copy of the newsletter. The information and links that it contains are not updated.
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Tales from the Terminal Room ISSN 1467-338X May 2002, Issue No. 32 Editor: Karen Blakeman Published by: RBA Information Services Tales from the Terminal Room (TFTTR) is a monthly newsletter, with the exception of July and August, which are published as a single issue. TFTTR includes reviews and comparisons of information sources and search tools; updates to the RBA Web site Business Sources and other useful resources; dealing with technical and access problems on the Net; and news of RBA's training courses and publications. In this issue:
Ft.com introduces subscriptionsAs threatened earlier this year, FT.com (http://www.ft.com/) has made a large chunk of its Web site available on subscription only. Free content is limited to the last 7 days of some FT articles and five days of stock market information. The Global Archive has gone and in its place is a 5yr FT archive and "power search" tool for "Level 1" subscribers. "Level 2" subscribers also have access to a "World Press Monitor and Archive", which covers 500 publications and claims to have over 12 million articles. Industry and FT surveys are now restricted to paying subscribers as are the company financials (Level 2). FT People appears to have disappeared altogether. Subscriptions rates for Level 1 are GBP 65 a year (GBP 5.42 monthly) and for Level 2 GBP 150 a year (GBP12.50 a month). Payment is by credit card. You can try out the service for free for 15 days but you have to give your credit card details when you sign up, so remember to cancel the subscription if you decide not to go ahead with it after the trial. More importantly, if you are thinking of using the service for business purposes - don't! Peruse the Terms and Conditions very, very carefully. Although you may email articles to a maximum of ten individuals using the 'Email this' service, you can only use the information for your personal, non-commercial use. Is it worth it?Level 1 may be worth considering as it gives you access to the in-depth reports, surveys and FT archive. I am not sure about Level 2, though. The World Press Monitor & Archive is far less comprehensive than Factiva's pay as you go option - 500 publications in FT.com versus 6000 in Factiva.com. But Factiva.com articles cost USD 2.95 each whereas you do not pay anything extra for articles from the FT.com service. I suppose it depends on whether your key sources are covered by the service and how often you are going to use it. It is extremely difficult to compare the source lists as there is no single file available on either service: you have to browse by each letter of the alphabet or search by publication name. The other additional service available to Level 2 subscribers is World Company Financials. According to the information on the FT.com subscription pages this gives access to "full company financials on 18,000 companies across 55 exchanges". When I tried out a few test searches, it was clear that FT.com's dictionary has a different definition of "full" to the one that is in mine, which is along the lines of "complete, reaching the utmost limit". The notes at the bottom of the each of the pages of financials clearly states that it is a selection of key account information. (The source used is Thomson Financial - Extel). To be honest, I can find more complete financials as well as detailed share price information, including historical data, elsewhere and free of charge. It is not as if FT.com offers a convenient one-stop shop: I found it very slow at processing requests and the site is still very cluttered and difficult to navigate. Updates to the RBA Web SiteGeneral Sources & Lists of Sites http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/general.htm FITA - Federation of International Trade Associations (http://www.fita.org/) - was founded in 1984 and "fosters international trade by strengthening the role of local, regional, and national associations throughout the United States, Mexico and Canada that have an international mission.". In addition to services for members, there is a good collection of Web resources for International trade with over 4000 annotated links. Categories include country or region, legal resources, language and translation, International market research and business directories. The business directories are particularly useful and are subdivided into industry specific, global and country directories. There is a free, bi-weekly newsletter - Really Useful Sites for International Trade Professionals. To subscribe go to http://fita.org/usefulregister.html and enter your email address. Stock Markets and Share Price Information http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/stocks.htm Sharepages (http://www.sharepages.com/) provides free UK stock market and share price information (15 minutes delayed). Also available are AFX and RNS news, discussion groups and a range of analytical tools to monitor market movements and create share watchlists and portfolios. Gold Mining Stocks and Gold Mining Companies http://www.gold-stocks.com/ provides charts, quotes, news, articles, newsletters and information on gold mining companies world-wide. Company Financials & Annual Reports http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/finars.htm Cerved (http://www.cerved.com/) is a major Italian provider of value-added business information and distributor of official data filed with Italy's Chambers of Commerce - the primary source of information about Italian companies. In addition to the official certificates of incorporation issued by the Chambers of Commerce, Cerved provides value-added reports such as credit reports, company profiles, summary financial statements (balance sheet, profit & loss accounts and ratios) and copies of the official accounts as images. More than 4 million Italian companies are covered, of which 600,000 are public and private limited share companies and limited liability companies (Spa & Srl). This is a priced service and payment can be made via credit card or pre-paid Reteaffari account. The latter is for frequent users of the service and offers discounts depending on usage. The site is available in Italian and English, although some information is available only in Italian. Statistics http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/stats.htm Statistics New Zealand ( http://www.stats.govt.nz/ ) will shortly be releasing 300 databases of census information and data from 1991 and 1996. The new free service will allow users to search geographical area, ethnic group, age, gender, educational qualifications, income and employment. Company & Telephone Directories http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/directs.htm Exp021XX (http://www.expo21xx.com/) has been added to the International Resources section of the Company and Telephone Directories page. The site uses an innovative approach to presenting a directory in that its design mimics a trade exhibition with fairs, halls and stands. The "fairs" cover industry sectors: textiles, automation, fluid power, motors and motion, maritime, yachting and water sports, finance and insurance, logistics and transportation, and office supplies. Each "fair" is subdivided into halls, for example textiles has sportswear, haute couture, jeans and denim. Each company in the hall has a "stand" with a brief description and a flag showing the country in which it is based. The amount of additional information on the companies varies depending on their subscription level. There are currently over 1,300,000 "exhibitors". Top 10 sites http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/top10/ The following were voted as Top 10 business sites by delegates attending the Key Business Resources workshop held on 29th May 2002:
Deletions from the RBA Business Sources ListingsBIRD-Online has closed down and has been removed from the General Sites and Support for SME pages. Investhink no longer provides a portal on stock market and company financial information providers. FT People, which appears to have disappeared from the new FT.com service, has been removed from the Miscellaneous page (Biographies section). The FT Global Archive has been deleted from the News page. These things are sent to try us!Microsoft changes Hotmail privacy settingsFirst Yahoo! and now Microsoft have decided unilaterally to share Hotmail users' personal details with other organisations, according to a weekly alerting service called Woody's Office Watch*. If you want to use Hotmail, you have to sign up for a Passport and are added to the Passport database. Microsoft Messenger also requires a Passport. If you signed up for Hotmail more than a couple of months ago, you may find that your privacy settings have been changed. The personal information involved includes your email address, birthday,country and zip code, gender and occupation. To check your privacy settings log in to your Hotmail accounts and click on Options and then Personal Profile. Towards the bottom of the screen, where there used be just one box there are now three: Share my e-mail address, Share my first and last names, Share my other registration information. Many users have found that these boxes have been checked without their permission so if you do no't want your details given out to other companies, uncheck the boxes pronto. * Woody's Office Watch (WOW) is a free, weekly email bulletin for the "Microsoft Office user, abuser, victim, pandit or pundit." Further details at http://www.woodyswatch.com/office/ Gizmo of the MonthShowURLhttp://www.faico.net/showurl/ ShowURL is a neat utility that enables you to print your bookmark files and favorites with their descriptions, as well as their URLs. It can also be used to process any HTML file for which you want to show the URLs. In addition you can remove unwanted date tags such as date added, date modified and date last visited. Bookmarks and favorites can be sorted by date or title, and exported as plain text or HTML. ShowURL is shareware. Registration costs USD 35. PublicationsSearch Strategies for the Internet, 4th editionThe 4th edition of Search Strategies for the Internet is now available. Publication Details: As with the third edition, the fourth edition is split into five sections:
Further details, contents list and order form are available at http://www.rba.co.uk/publications/search.htm TFTTR Contact InformationKaren Blakeman, RBA Information Services ArchivesTFTTR archives: http://www.rba.co.uk/tfttr/archives/index.shtml Subscribe and UnsubscribeTo subscribe to the newsletter fill in the online registration form at http://www.rba.co.uk/tfttr/index.shtml To unsubscribe, use the registration form at http://www.rba.co.uk/tfttr/index.shtml and check the unsubscribe radio button. Privacy StatementSubscribers' details are used only to enable distribution of the newsletter Tales from the Terminal Room. The subscriber list is not used for any other purpose, nor will it be disclosed by RBA or made available in any form to any other individual, organisation or company.
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| This page was last updated on 31st May 2002 | 2002 |
